Homeward
by TheMadnessofDoctorStrangelove
Summary: Kal-El is intercepted before he can reach the Terran system. Stranded in deep space, he faces perilous trials at the hands of marauders, forms unlikely bonds, and meditates on his absence from planet Earth. Set in the canon of SUPERMAN RETURNS(2006) and serves a prequel to events depicted in the film. A novel in progress.
1. PART ONE: Chapter One

_SUPERMAN and characters appearing in SUPERMAN COMICS are the property of DC COMICS and WARNER BROTHERS ENTERTAINMENT INC. The story featured is a work of unlicensed fan fiction._

_SUPERMAN RETURNS (2006) is the 'film universe' in which this fan fiction story takes place. It is intended to serve as a PREQUEL to the events depicted in the film._

* * *

_PART ONE: _

_T__he Doomed Ship __Ojmurod. _

_Chapter One. _

* * *

At the point between dreams and consciousness, thoughts raced and collided. A fever of directionless chatter invaded the peace guarded longspun by oblivion. Kal-El could not see faces in the nebula of color and...light? Yes, he was awake enough to see and feel the heat shimmering. As if sensing his tiny glimmer of awareness, from humming static rose voices. Words hurriedly overwhelmed him like a queued line of petitioners, each with their grievance. Over them all, he could hear the unwavering, modulated guidance of his Father drifting him back into slumber. Bedtime stories about the minutiae of the known galaxies, and then Mom banging on the door. In the seconds before his memory twinged, he was positive her hands jostled him. _Up and at it Clark, or you'll be late._

The hull of the spaceship shivered. Life returned to the carefully curated atmosphere of nitrogen and oxygen outside the crystalline stasis pod, and as the diamond shell unfurled and split apart like a pair of angel's wings, the ship moaned, as did its passenger. Shivering and shuddering turned to ripples and quakes, and Kal smiled while he stretched his limbs and imagined the vessel doing the same. He regarded his groaning companion and ran his hands along the small grooved surface of the sleeping chamber's fissure. A small cup responded by unwinding and manifesting itself from the recesses of the glittering glass. He raised the transparent mug to his lips and tried to drink the contents without consideration. Ma Kent's orange juice it was not, though it was thick and as hardy as a breakfast at her table. Maybe, he realized as he stifled the liquid nutrients down, if the timing was right, he might be seated at that table very soon, and scouring over a sturdy helping of one of Martha Kent's patented morning meals, and somewhere between bacon repaid with chores around stately Kent Farm, mother and son would talk and have a good laugh at where'd been for five years and why he'd left without word.

His memory twinged again and pulled. No pretending he was rolling out of bed like any other day, not in Smallville. Not even thoughts of Metropolis and the safe routine of his old apartment could shield his trepidation. Sure, a cup of days-old coffee would hit the spot just right, and a freezer burned bagel would heat up nicely before work. That sad carbonized bagel, he thought. If only that were the biggest hurdle on his plate today. Then maybe the ever squeezing pressure on his chest could be chalked up to indigestion. However, this space-faring craft wasn't outfitted for java, and the task ahead was a lot greater than scorched bread.

Kal took his first purposive step out of the stasis chamber. The soft fall of his stride punctuated dancing traces of phosphorescence that seemed almost to ferry Krypton's last wayward son a short distance onto the observation platform. The radiance remained only where it could sketch his form and aide his vision. Darkness saturated irrelevancies and loomed profoundly. The immaculate glimmer of crystals rose to meet his outstretched fingertips and held back the gloom, if not the grief that clouded his spirit.  
The seclusive darkness began to fill with tiny points of light. A blanket of stars filled Kal's vision, and it looked as though he could reach out and if he wanted to, snatch a pulsar in the palm of his hand and snuff it out. Like frost losing its grip on a cold window, the ship face had converted itself into a porthole as intuitively and as quickly as the cup of synthesized nutrients had answered his desire for nourishment. The awe of this majestic sight went unnoticed, for Kal had expected to be greeted by a far nobler and more daunting spectacle. The quiet yet commanding Earth—his adoptive home and source of his great anxiety. One angst was traded for another, more terrible fear.

For a singular moment, the twinge in Kal's abdomen churned and lit on fire. His eyes scanned back and forth frenetically. With a slight pull of his fingers across the gem-laden control panel, Kal called the spaceship under his direct command. Slow and steady the small, twinkling ship craned on an invisible axel and searched. No sign of debris that he could see, but his eyes were not as sharp as they once were, and he turned his focus to his console. He found one of the baubles that adorned the panel. It flashed impatiently, and he obliged with a stroke of his index finger.

With an enthusiastic, computerized whirl, a holographic display asserted for Kal's inspection. Star charts and text interlays clipped by but offered no comfort. The console lit up like a Christmas tree display, and a dull electronic alarm sounded. The repetitive toll played far too much like a funeral march for his liking. He swiftly appraised the information as it shifted and warped about the air.

_VESSEL detected_, read the plain text.

He reread it. Though he imagined himself composed, if he genuinely sought the Earth, he might discover twin terras in his irises if he looked hard enough now. Vessel. Not object. _Vessel._ Goose pimples prickled under his bodysuit. "Elaborate." His first words were hoarse and strained from disuse. The liquid-based sustenance still coated the back of his throat, and the aftertaste produced a flutter of air that soured his mouth. The computer acknowledged his voice command and promptly transcribed a more detailed response on the holographic image.

_computer log:_

_stardate: 2817.6_

_long-range radiolocation scans began detecting OBJECT._

A star map ignited and superimposed inside Kal's field of vision. Amidst the digital subterfuge, a green dot flickered — his ship. A much larger red dot loomed on the edge of the map. "Not ominous at all." _Boneyard humor doesn't suit you, son._ He registered this silent opinion in his father's voice. The Earth one, anyway. He almost smirked. Almost. Instead, his heart sank. By the computer's reckoning, the journey to Krypton and back would take about five years, hence the need for metabolic suspension. He'd seen the remains of the doomed planet and when he reentered suspension the computer had registered the passage of two and half years. Right on schedule, but the calculations presented now estimated only about six months had elapsed since then. He was nowhere near the Terran system.

_stardate 2817.7_

_OBJECT movement uncharacteristic for DEBRIS._

_OBJECT moving to INTERCEPT_

_EVASIVE ACTION BETA-1 initiated._

VESSEL_ likely._

_STASIS TERMINATED. INTERVENTION REQUIRED_

_END OF EVENT SUMMARY_

_ADVISE._

Well, what the hell was Kal supposed to do about it? "Cease alarm."

There was a start. Now what? Spacefarers were not known, at least to Kryptonians, to be frequenters of the path that Kal-El was to take to and frow. That was one of the reasons Jor-El had chosen Earth in the first place. Kal recalled his tutelage under the ghostly specter of his Father. The Space One. Between Earth and Krypton, there existed no civilizations, no impedance that might find his infant son suddenly captive of a carnivorous band of culinary marauders. There was that humor live and direct from the gallows again. Jocularity made the point no less accurate. Earth was out of the way and as far 'off road' as it got. Kind of like Smallville—you'd never find it unless you were looking for it and even then, you'd probably get lost. Moreover, if you got there, there wasn't a whole lot there that would interest a city slicker—or alien.

Kal suddenly realized he was probably about to make First Contact with an alien species. Probably. Hell, very likely if they didn't vaporize him on sight. He'd only ever had the pleasure of First Contact two other times. On the first occasion, he was three and a half feet tall, bare-assed in a field, and already the love of Martha Kent's life. Dimples had won him the day, then. The second time, well, things didn't go quite as well the second time. The latter encounter was contemplated heavily inside the tiny ship for several long moments. The unidentified vessel tentatively inched closer and closer to midrange. He reexamined the holographic record.

Evasive Action Beta-One was an automated defensive maneuver. It was programmed to respond to the detection of sentient intimidations. When initiated by the self-regulating computer, its function was to make it appear as if the ship was no more than another piece of floating rubble adrift in the vacuum of space. With Kal in stasis, the computer could restrict life support to minimal levels to avoid detection from scans or probes. That had apparently been a wash. And now the computer was begging for help. This other ship knew Kal was alive and well or at least something that needed to be poked at, and was coming out to investigate and meet a brand new 'friend.'

Were they friendly? Kal stared into the starlit void at about what direction he was to receive this visitation. "Well," he sighed. "Be you friend or foe?"

He envisioned a hatchway opening, and inside little green men in suspenders and straw hats waiting to greet him with a hearty handshake and a pat on the back. Indeed, just an association of aggregate farmers out ah-looking for martian seeds to sow. Yeah right.

Kal's eye caught the map. At the edge of its coverage, opposite his opponent, there was a particularly nasty cluster of—asteroids! With a flurry of pent up speed, Kal input the coordinates and the ship roared to life. He needed to get within midrange to get a better look at them. As it stood, they were his only real hope of avoiding this inquiring passerby. And he was committed entirely to reaching the outcropping the very second he decided to take off like a bat out of hell. He was a target from then on. The way he saw it, this ship was coming to call anyway, and that could lead to a very nasty altercation in the middle of dead space far from the comforting aura of Earth and its sun. He supposed he could have taken a chance and stopped and asked them for directions, but the growing apprehension in his stomach said otherwise. No yellow sun, no contact. A good rule he reckoned. _No yellow sun, turn tail and run._

As expected, the vessel increased its speed and began a direct pursuit. Fine enough. He wouldn't outrun them for long, but he might beat them to the asteroid cluster, which he prayed the computer would identify as an asteroid field, and so much the better. In a dense domain of rock, he could lose them. His ship was small enough and less vulnerable than the rather large blip tracking nearer and nearer to him. A blip that the computer confirmed would overtake him just as entered the outskirts of the asteroid field. Indeed a field. The computer verified the density of the asteroid belt by buzzing frantically. Kal could hear in his head that robot from the old space wars movie shouting statistics about how badly he had just screwed up.

He could see with his own eyes now the faint hints of stone and rock and something else he couldn't rightly explain with just a glance when the first bout of weapon fire struck him. He recalled a gleam of metal, perhaps glinting out among the stone garden. The computer began spraying all sorts of statistical jargon onto the hologram. Not that Kal could make much use of it now. The image was fuzzy and blinking rhythmically to the shock. The ship rocked and swerved but kept the course. In fact, the collisions seemed to be creating a shockwave that was allowing his tiny craft ride along faster and faster.

The dense congregation of mass was before him now. Each surge pushed him closer and closer, and each time his misgivings doubled. He gripped the controls with all of his strength. His staccato maneuvers were narrow and rigid. Every jolt, he thought, would pull him away, snap the crystalline mechanizations from him. Each time he corrected his pathway, he could sense the menace of another incoming blow. And each time he believed he had his handle back another wave of rippling energy would thrust the ship wildly forward. At least his pursuer's aim had gotten worse. The afterthought of marks missed undulated all around him.

He could no longer gauge the ever-growing size of these monumental asteroids. The ship seemed to skim across them as though skirting across a long dirt drive. Might there be a manor house at the end? He could fold up this business and retire here. Of course, the neighbors would need a good talking to about being more hospitable. The ship came about after an extraordinarily long stretch and found not a mansion, nor another rockface, but another glint of shiny metal. He understood clearly now what he had recognized formerly. This wasn't just a home for delinquent asteroids — a long, smooth cylinder—a smooth manmade facade—tapered nose jutting out to the adventure no longer to be had. There was no mistaking a good oldfashioned rocketship, frozen in time, bruised and beaten, but still reliable enough to welcome Kal-El of the House of El to the local scrapyard. Kal bounded the ship toward the nose. Much of the old girl had been burned ashen, but there was no dismissing her Cockpit windows, dark and deep, threatened him with melancholy eyes.

It occurred to Kal that his brain had the time to manifest this disquieting little sentiment. The siege on his ship had desisted. The hologram was clear enough to understand again, and Kal sighed. The war-dog had backed off, and even retreated. "This far, no further, eh?"

Crewless cockpit eyes locked with his again and he didn't feel amusing anymore. He felt admonished, and something else. Dread. The ship coasted much slower now and settled composedly as if in reverence for the scene unfolding ahead. A memorial of sunken, sullen, shells greeted him and smothered the exhale of relief before it was finished.

The rocket was quaint compared to the twisted remains that lay beyond. They must have attended other weary travelers with stomachs stern enough venture deeper. Circumstances permitted Kal nothing less. He regarded the unsightly apparitions with an imperceptible nod as his ferry passed. It was reasonable, he thought, and necessary to ask permission from any haunts lingering in the depths. He half expected to see forms slink out of the twisted remnants to vote on the matter. Furthermore, if they had, would he have understood them?

Hollowed out skeletons of a thousand unfinished journeys spanned farther than Kal dared tally. He counted all manner of spacecraft that his imagination could conjure and even more that defied appraisal. He pressed a small pad on the console and outside, the Kryptonian craft responded in kind with a flickering ray of focused light. With the sway of his finger along coarse pad, concentrated beams played a game of eerie shadow puppets. The light shone deep into the gutted innards and generated the illusion of life, of fusion cores still warm. And if the vessels challenged his precepts, what had spilled out of them into open space boggled his mind. He could not begin to discern the gemish of scientific craftsmanship splayed to and frow.

How many cultures were out there? Kal's soundless mystery stirred in him sentiments never held before in his short lifetime. He was proof positive of life outside the Terran limits and yet in all those years confined in myopic Smallville, never did he broach the possibility with any serious measure beyond that of his own heritage. He'd been chased here by someone he could no more picture than the expanse of dead pilots whose ashes littered this necropolis. The vastness of the universe was but for a long few seconds squarely on that observation bridge, herald of a now much smaller legacy.

A great long face, no metaphor this time, of steel and alloy, glared gratifyingly into the ship's window and into the fascination of a phenom that might be readily explained away if only the great leader this adornment signified could orate. The etched snout of the colossus remained unmoved by Kal's wonder and did not speak. It sat serenely like the great Sphinx atop a monolithic triangular formation of fabricated alloys and strange glimmering composites that refracted the ship's search beams and enchanted its symbols to advance forth and tell their story. Glyphs and foreign emblems ornamented the animal form of the resting titan. Was this immense craft a monument to a people or a God? No answer was forthcoming. The features of the being had long eroded leaving only his judgemental brow and an elongated muzzle.

_The total accumulation of all knowledge spanning the 28 known galaxies is embedded in the crystal which I have sent along with you._ Jor-El's voice rang loud. Of course! The answer was at his fingertips. Surely, the computer could analyze these remains and give him some insights before he plotted his way home. He checked his map. Whatever had given chase wasn't coming back. That meant he had time to explore and better serve his newfound curiosities.

What an experience it would be to chart this area of space and give better context to the words of his Father. For the first time since he began this trip, Kal felt not alone. Unbeknownst to him, this was the literal truth. His mood lifted, and he let his digits dance along the console like a skilled piano player. Jor-El's instructions flowed unobstructed, freed from the cobwebbed steeple. He was about halfway to initiating a proper scan of the Sphinx wreckage when, according to his faint recollections of this moment, he became aware of a commotion outside and onboard his ship. His equilibrium lurched. There was a brilliant flash of heat and fire so intense that his mind tried to flee and dissociate. It succeeded. In the absence of memory and consciousness, there were voices, each in queue, each with a grievance. And the seething flames. They did not leave him for a long time.


	2. PART ONE: Chapter Two

_PART ONE: _

_T__he Doomed Ship __Ojmurod. _

_Chapter Two._

* * *

Sil secured three more ragged breaths before she stopped pretending she had slept at all. She relaxed her grip around the hilt of a worn down blade and tensed it again just as her muscles had begun to thank her. A wave of exhaustion trickled up and down a body used far too vigorously considering the measure of years she'd spent as a part of the gust of the universe. Her avian nostrils grunted, unable to inhale a full whiff of air. Life support had begun to fail, and much further ahead of Dahnaeth's forecast.

Sil poured herself into her boots. Her accommodations supplied her no assistance, duratain steel was a cold and stern bedfellow. However, it had kept her alert, and for that, she was obliged. She patted the flat unforgiving bed and hoisted. Her tiredness mingled with the lack of air, and before she had her fill with two small staggering gasps, she almost fell right back down. Instead, she lunged forward in the darkness and felt for the commbox. Her long thin digits hunted along the wall and then the puckered speaker mesh until she gripped the switch.

"Dahn," Sil sneered. Static responded, unaffected by her unrest. She trained her eyes to the only light in the room. The wall mounted timekeeper, her only companion through the night, blinked dimly. It had kept vigil with her and now resigned itself to their shared fate and evaporated. Before extinguishing, the clock had read very near the hour of truth.

It took her twice as long to unbarricade the door as it had taken to fortify it. Beads of heat wrenched from her tense eye slits as she heaved the heavy duratain chair from its resting place pressed up against the entrance to her quarters. Watchful sentinel was its only charge now, having been rescued from the bridge while there was still air to exhale there. Not that it would have stopped Brott if he meant to fulfill his promise, but he wouldn't be able to be quick or quiet about the deed.

Sil loosened her long braid from its wrap around her neck a little and acted, for no audience other than herself, as though it alleviated the stabbing pain in her gullet. Better to indict the tightening atmosphere and not any lurking terror within herself. Brott was a leader among the Contractors, and butting heads with him had been inevitable the moment they were assigned to one another, especially since Sil had gotten the commander position for this job. To those aboard, the prize on offer was worth killing for, and Sil's governing had made it at least worth dying for. The latter had been the subject of Sil's and Brott's worst confrontation yet. They'd had several since Yhido. Yhido had been the last straw for Brott, and a promise had been made, but the gift was as of yet undelivered, and thankfully, an uneasy stalemate had washed over her crew once it became known that they had enough fuel to reach target. Sil's stilted respirations now said otherwise.

The air in the hallway was much more agreeable. Sil didn't realize this until she slowly scanned the range around her quarters and then sighed. It was still quite dark, but the emergency lighting's red glow throbbed along the severe indentations of the corridors. Brott's matted mane burned hot orange when he was near the light, and it would have given him up.

With each step taken, she imagined another piece of her psyche cracking and dumping behind her like a duratain albatross. Hopelessness, anxiety, and conscience no longer had any home inside of the Captain of the Ojmurod. If morality were of any great concern, she wouldn't be aboard. None of them would be. So if Brott wanted her blood, he would have his chance to earn it, blood far easier a commodity for Sil to part with than tears for dead men.

When she reached operations, she was steadier than she had been when the amber furred Den'ol had accused her of outright sabotage. Fewer shares had been the charge. Brott's two-toned appraisal of every situation was typical of his race. It served him well enough for the time he'd been a Contractor, but that uncomplicated binary thinking skirted far too close to honor, of which he and the rest of this crew (living and dead) had none. However, his oration had been inspiring to the precious few who walked away from Yhido. Especially, when Sil's defense had essentially amounted to a tepid _so what_.

She was no treasonist, but this job was what it was, and success meant what it meant. There was no higher prize than that. All that mattered now was being alive to collect.

A heavy door seal had been initiated over the entryway to where the surviving crew, all four of them if you included Sil, called camp. Two resounding knocks announced her. At sight level, there was a small viewport, accompanied by a commbox. On the other side of impenetrable glass, large black orbs capped the distance between commander and crewmate.

"Why in the blazes can't I breathe?" Sil skipped pleasantries on good days, also. The Comm clicked.

"It was deemed prudent to ration power exclusively to this chamber." Dahnaeth of the House of Zaeer-Yhido thought so much of himself. Even garbled through white-noise, his tightly curated speech gave away presumption every time he spoke. "We're losing energy much faster than before."

"Was it _deemed_ a good idea to notify me?" Sil coarsely rebuked, already beginning to feel her newly revived fervor waning.

There was an almost imperceptible pause. "We tried to comm you," Dahn informed. "We received no answer, and it was surmised that gradually reducing life support in that section would send the message well enough."

Message received. "Very good."

Another nearly undetectable lapse, and then, unsolicited, "Captain, it was a matter of some debate."

"Open the door," Sil ordered. "Then you can tell me all about it, and while we're at it, we can discuss why I'm not doing your deeming and surmising _for_ you."

"It is an ongoing discussion."

The deafening silence that followed was the longest in her life. In Sil's mind, what was probably only a few seconds ran the entire rest of time that the ship could still support life, on Dahn's side anyway. Her supply was already getting much thinner. Maybe it was her lightheadedness that was extending the moment. A person's last were thought to be the most belabored, after all. It might have helped if the Ohloo species had features to adorn their dusky gray faces, then maybe she could have read more from him.

"Did you three take a vote or something?" She put herself across as unfazed, but the dryness she'd mean to add to diminish the threat was dropped. It was now far too costly an effort to add that much color to this discussion. "Well, how did I do?"

"Not well," Dahn did not usually dance around serious matters either. His matter of fact admission was common in his manner of wit, as was maliciousness, which at this time, was well hidden in his featureless appraisal. A talent well manufactured before his time as a Contractor mercenary. He'd risen from the designation of slave very quickly. The allure of his highborn past had pushed him farther than many of his contemporaries to reclaim a mere fraction of his former status. It had landed him on this ship, and it made sure he was standing on the right side of the door. So had his cunning, and if he meant your death, there was no conversation. His work was unfailingly clean, quick, and quiet. This little detour, however, was a time-sensitive negotiation.

"Are we done talking, then, Dahn?" It took all her might to hold his unblinking gaze and still appear in a strong position. She measured her breaths in a quick catch and release.

"Circumstances have changed," Dahn proceeded unperturbed.

Sil smiled certainly. "Aw, did you stick that thin neck of yours out for little old me?" Witty and wicked yes, but a thinker always. Sil had sized that up in him early. How can things best serve Dahn? That was a perspective that looked at what had happened at Yhido and known it hadn't been personal. He'd have done the same damn thing.

"I have vouched for you," he confirmed flatly. "It may be wise, based on this new development."

"Well—" her throat began to catch. She played it off as though it were her part of her normal intonation. "Don't—Keep—Me—In—Suspense."

The static on the comm suddenly crackled with new intensity, and Dahn disappeared for an interminable amount of time. When he reappeared, Sil caught the tail end of a separate conversation.

"—it's open. Go and have a look then." The first real inflection in Dahn's voice. He must be talking to Aldon, Sil thought. Only poor old Aldon could illicit even that little an emotion from the Ohloo former Heir to the fortune of Zaeer-Yhido. Those black pools of silent reflection returned to her situation much too slowly. "We've captured a vessel."

_What?_ She couldn't muster a verbal response. Too many things were racing through her head. _How? When? Where?_ Oxygen deprivation was setting in, and she could barely concentrate now.

"We can abandon the Ojmurod," he announced, "but we may require your piloting skills."

Instead of dealing with the cacophony of questions swirling about her head, Sil rushed to her final gambit. Amid the eddying mess that made up her gasping brain, the point had been made clear, and she spoke. "What you—Mean to say is—Brott —Can't navigate—By punching the helm.'"

Air burned her lungs with a searing, stinging welcome. Pain had never felt so good.

"I believe we can cease hostilities amongst ourselves in the name of survival, if not renewed friendship."

Sil waited to respond until the hatch had resealed behind her. "Since when were we ever friends?" She rubbered her eye slits with clammy palms. Her vision cleared just as the blue discoloration lost its hold over her porcelain skin. Dahn was the first thing to enter her sight afterward.

"Captain," he reaffirmed as though nothing untoward had happened at all, "the computer's newest projections for fuel consumption put us far behind target range before... the end, even on thrusters. The autopilot confirmed it."

As good as his attestation felt, Sil could not allow his power display to go unnoticed. Her blade found the skin of the Ohloo's gray neck. "You are a sneaky little piece of scum, aren't you?"

If Dahn were frightened, he showed no sign. "The only one that endorsed your continued presence among the other pieces, such as we are. Brott would have rather taken our chances."

"Well," she sighed dryly as resheathed her blade on her hip. "Don't expect a kiss and if you think—" her voice caught again. The oxygen was plentiful, however, at least for the next half hour or so, according to Dahn's next series of reports. As he stepped into stride and with her and began his appraisal, Sil's perception pulled focus down the long stretch of the Bay, and she took in the spectacle of their quarry.

The Bay (see Holyland) had become the nucleus, burning faintly, of the Ojmurod. Dahn, now the closest thing to an engineer, revealed the necessity to move operations exclusively into this tall, empty, recess. He had hoped it would have freed up enough energy to still make Home. He was wrong, and her three crewmen had set up shop here just to line up their bodies for convenient identification. Even that small courtesy, if it ever came, would end not with a grave but a scrapyard compactor. Their atoms would forever be recycled into better and better scrap heaps lorded by far better crews. But, now it seemed, a way out could salvage this little venture.

The Bay was the largest single compartment on the ship. Contractor ship designs were typical in this fashion. More emphasis was put on the hold area than anywhere else, including crew compliments or accommodations. The crews were made up of ex-slaves, after all, and their bounty was far more critical to the Boss than the chattel that ran it. His greed, Sil would later believe, had been what saved the lives of this troupe, by allowing for such an ample space for the unbelievable chariot that had fallen into their laps.

It looked like a star frozen in mid-explosion. Translucent stalagmites protruded out in all directions and up into the darkness. Sil guessed they must be nearly touching the limits. The hull's glow, amplified somehow by the Ojmurod's emergency illuminations, took on a molten cast. It palpitated with clandestine powers, and as she drew closer, something stirred, but whether that rousing came from within the ship or herself, she was unsure. Already, the reverence that would steadily increase from here on had seeded.

She reached out and nearly touched it. She saw the hollow bones in her appendage light up red with blazing intensity, and she recoiled, unburned but yet still fearful of injury. Standing under the mass of the thing, throbbing and humming, Sil got the sense, not of the vibrations of an engine, but the beating of a heart. Someone much more highbrow, like Dahn, would have used the word sentience, but creepy suited her better.

"How did you get this?" Sil could not conceal her wonderment.

"We used the Collector," Dahn exhaled, having been interrupted midsentence. "As I already explained."

Sil had been too lost in the crystal craft's hypnotic grandeur to have paid attention. Mention of the Collector broke her daze and spurned a scolding leer.

"It was an unavoidable use of our modest energy resources," Dahn confirmed. "We were—are—dead in the proverbial water and the energy usage actually provided us cover for the capture." Could that thin gray mouth have grinned? "Our lack of abundance made us invisible to the pilot's scans, and one blight from the Collector's Solar Emitter delivered us this opportunity out of our predicament."

"Your idea?" As if Sil didn't already know.

"Of course."

They ducked their heads under the mighty thrust of a crystal lance that could impale the heart of a mammoth beast much larger than Brott and arrived at the tailfin, a great comet tail halted forever, jutting upward at almost a right angle toward the Bay doors. Much smaller protrusions provided a kind of stand for the craft to rest upon. And there, bathed in its mysterious luminescence was the Den'ol, yellow striped pupils already transfixed on Sil. He stood all of eight feet tall, pressed against the railing of the Bay's nearby auxiliary helm platform with his bulky arms crossed tightly across his ribs.

Before any 'pleasantries' had a chance to be exchanged, the impish Aldon, already with a prize, tugged it down a pathway that, in the glimmer, looked like a river flow of melted rock. For his trouble, he nearly toppled over as his cargo's weight pushed him down the almost frictionless walkway. He wheezed and coughed the last few steps before dropping a pair of heavy sounding legs out from under his arms onto the solid duratain ground.

"Unconscious," he spewed. "Just like you said, Brott."

"The pilot is alive?" More inflection from Dahn.

Deeply set inside a ruff of scraggly gray hair, two pale green eyes lost their small portion of luster and noted disgustedly. "Dahnaeth." The regard more classification than greeting, Aldon released himself of that burden and ambled up to Brott and sought approval. "I get the first jab at pretties, eh, Brott?"

Piercing animalistic eyes stayed trained on Sil's for several more very long seconds and then slowly craned down to the much smaller man, A paw smothered Aldon's old and weathered shoulder.

"We'll see." Genuine affection in the Den'ol 's strident voice. Sil had assumed since the beginning that the larger tyrant had taken Aldon in like a pet. He was the only one who could get the monster to coo.

Brott's pigment striped gaze acknowledged the smaller man's apparent dissatisfaction. "Why don't you appraise the situation and see what you find—"

Aldon scurried, nearly on all fours, back up the to the crystalline hatchway.

"How did it survive the Emitter?" Sil asked as she knelt at the unshielded figure Aldon had discarded onto the floor. Umbrae tracked the becalmed features, and reddish hues generated a firelit shadowplay along the bridge of a nose, lips, a forehead, and a slick brush of black hair. Quite diminutive characteristics compared to her own very definitely sharpened bone structure, but not unwholly recognizable. Gauging an exact skin tone was harder. Pale skin seemed to embody vermilion light as easily as did Brott's fur. It was indeed a face, but not of a species she knew.

The clothes offered little by way of answers. They were more a blank canvas. Sil observed a sold silver bodysuit. It clung to the pilot from the middle of the neck to the tip of the feet. The only proof of this creature's origin was the steadily ebbing emblem etched finely into the weave across the chest. It was a designation of some kind, Sil reckoned, but she'd never come across it in her travels.

"Maybe it wasn't a direct hit?" Dahn queried as Sil returned to his flank. Despite a perceivable swell of hope they could feel growing in the other, their stride up to the glistening hatchway became almost a contest in who could march up slower.

"How did you get the hatch open?" Sil wondered.

"It opened by itself," Dahn said with much more disquietude than intended. A coolness sprang up both shipmate's vertebrae. The first of what would be several hesitations occurred. They turned back and regarded Brott, who moved nary a bit. He just stared, poised to leap at Sil the moment she failed. Forward on.

The aperture invited them like the mouth of the legendary frost dragons from stories Sil's remembered from childhood when she still had a warm place to call home, and things were much simpler, and monsters (and slaveholding) were just the stuff of mother's maudlin stories. How much, she suddenly realized, she wished she were home, the home of yesteryear, far away from whatever lurked inside.

Sentiment was just another impediment. She silently reprimanded it, and like the others, it tumbled and clanged down the steep inclination and smoldered at the bottom of the ramp.

Inside, the noisy fumblings of Aldon settled nerves somewhat, but the feeling of being observed prickled their senses and raised awareness briskly like the call to Attention. The importance of the reasonably small space pervaded, and the gravity imposed itself even through Sil's usually impassable wall of obstinance.

Dahn preoccupied himself with Aldon's foolery in the aft section while Sil made the short trek to the helm, where unblunted shards dared her to try and master them. She saw nothing that even in the remotest sense followed any mechanical design in her years flying freighters. She'd been tested under fire, learned the language of spacefaring, but this was something else, from somewhere far exceeding the purposes of a wayward troupe of plunderers. It might as well have been magic. For all she knew, an artist had chiseled the entire piece out of a single berg and willed it to life.

The crystal array lit dully to Sil's touch, and she finally recognized something. The sound of a computer straining and then failing to answer. A tiny rumble, building to a peak and then subsiding into nothing, kind of like what having her skull crushed under Brott's mandible would feel like. Sil leaned her head, while it was still hers, upward and nearly shrieked. Instead, she discerned the unmistakable scorching of the Ojmurod's Solar Emitter. It had radiated through the top of the hull, bubbling the only materials not made of crystal and arched just so, probably the result of refraction off of all the glass surfaces in the craft, and had hit the helm, not the pilot, full force, leaving the pretty display intact and liquidating whatever powered it beneath.

She struck the lifeless rock. Her hand wouldn't forgive her for a long while after. She'd no time to mourn. Her dull thud was replied to by a much stronger report.

Brott had emphatically let a duratain crate come to rest at the midpoint between forward and aft. Supplies.

"Captain," his massive frame curtailed the imbued profundity of the vessel and blocked Sil's only means of escape. "Can you pilot this ship, or shall I prepare my last supper now."

Aldon, the feeble-minded old man, perceiving, perhaps for the first time the severity of the proceedings, appeared behind the giant and jumped between the Den'ol and his prey.

"Look! Look!" He smiled weakly and unfurled a set of garments in front of Brott. Fabric let out and fluttered onto the floor, but he held on to one piece tightly. He turned and showed Sil. "Look, Sil! Clothes for me!" His thumbs were clasped around an ornamented version of the same strange suit and emblem she'd seen steadily rising and falling under the weight of her hand. Aldon rumpled up the ornate cloth and set it on the large crate that Brott deposited. "And boots! I'll give them to _you_, Brott!"

Those little red boots would never fit the Den'ol strong man, and simpering Aldon knew it. Probably the only thing he did know. It changed regularly, after all, moment to moment. To think, the state of him now would shame any friend who had known him as a tailor of beautiful garments whose fashions were sold in three sectors of the Yhido Empire, before his accounts—and his mind—had been foreclosed. A tailor no less, aboard the damned Ojmurod.

Maybe, it had been those fine, beautiful brightly hued clothes that had brought back that savvy salesman, if only for a few precious seconds of lucidity, to vie for the wretched life of the Captain. A terrible Captain, she had been, and doomed them all, but with so little time left, why not let her perish with the ship she led. The cause had been just. The reasons were hallowed, if not the woman who harbored them. The dead understood this, wouldn't Brott?

"How about this," the old man nudged the mountainous warrior and pulled from behind his back his final ware—a ruby cloak. "I wanted it, but it suits you better, I think. A robe fit for my kingly friend." Aldon's flight suit was much more frayed and tattered than the others. It was far too big for him and hung loosely. Not that he could make much do. He could barely dress himself what with his cerebral limitations. The clasps for his jacket, those that were left anyway, were undone and his undershirt, once as white as Sil's skin was tarnished by an interminable excursion.

"Keep your finds, Aldon," Sil spoke softly. Was that gratitude? She moved within range of Brott's grasp and clasped the hilt of her blade.

"Well?" Brott had not looked away from her for a single instant. Aldon shrank back and anticipated the end.

Behind them in the aft, quiet and watchful Dahn's attention had finally been pulled away from the assortment of low hanging crystals that loomed over the pod where he had seated himself. From his reclined vantage point, he awaited the verdict.

Sil was close enough now to smell the acridness on Brott's breath. In one swoop, he could render head from body. Instead, he waited, and yet knew the full truth before she delivered it. A card player, Sil had never been.

"The controls were fried by the Solar Emitter," Sil presented bitterly. "This is us finished."

"So," she shrugged. "Come for me if you are coming."

Out of the Nadir, a growl rose.

Sil braced herself for the attack, knowing she could not prevail.

Suddenly, both Dahn and Aldon had joined ranks behind Brott, and they leered, not at her person, but past her. She had no time to react. Brott in one motion, without even so much as an incline at the knees, lept over her and let out a whoop reserved only for the imminently dead. That roar was replaced with another, that cried out for pain, and in the same voice.

Obscuring the crew's view of their compatriot's faceplant, a black-clad figure stood erect.

"My son, are you well?" A polished voice warmly greeted.

The affection was quickly drowned out by Brott's retaliation. An arm more fit to be a tree trunk swung wildly with talons outstretched and found only the unyielding diamond hull. The entire vessel shook.

"Evil spirit!" Shouted Aldon, before cowering behind Dahn. This was the closest they'd ever been to each other. The Ohloo twitched an eye ridge but gave no other indication of movement.

Sil slowly took her blade out of its sheath and ran it where the apparition's intestines would be. Instead of sinews spilling, light bent and flickered. A face smiled back at her. The same face as the unknown pilot spawled outside in the Bay, only worn harder by the passage of years, and longer hair, white and better kempt than poor old Aldon's. And there, above where she had stuck her knife, that same alien adornment stood proudly and brightly contrasted against the solemn robes that cloaked the Ojmurod's newest visitor.

"I detect a commotion," it said. "Is everything all right?"

Sil waved her hands back and forth in from of its eyes. The reaction was only slight. It seemed to squint as though struggling to see.

"Transmission?" She whispered. High tech though it may have been, this kind of three-dimensional communication was not uncommon, especially among the rich men, like those she'd comforted to as a young slave. Technology was new to her then, long before she had earned her station.

"Not out here," Dahn quietly interjected. "Holographic interface is more likely. Seems to be slightly glitchy."

The 'image' huffed. "I know you were adamant about conducting this voyage on your own. I have only initialized because the ship's computer has registered several malfunctions and I was hoping I could assist you."

Brott groaned loudly and nursed the wounds he sustained. Glances from his cohorts scolded him.

"Are you alright, Kal?" Worry enveloped the aristocratic tone.

In the silence, several shrugs were exchanged and then Sil, as Captain, took the plunge.

"Who are you?"

"Speak louder, please," advised the older gentleman. "My functions have been negatively impacted by the computer's impairment."

If the Ojmurod's bridge were still manned, they could have heard her from there.

A brow wrinkled in contemplation, and then, once the simulation had seized that data from the damaged bank, it recounted.

"I am Jor-El. I am your father."


	3. PART ONE: Chapter Three

_Author's Note: In the interest of intergalactic brevity, all __hominids speak English, just like those wonderful thespians on Krypton._

* * *

_PART ONE:_

_T__he Doomed Ship __Ojmurod._

_Chapter Three._

* * *

On the morning that would end the planet Earth's association with Superman, Kal-El paid a long overdue visit to his elderly Earth mother—Martha Kent. Despite the ease by which a reunion could be arranged, he found himself darkening her door not enough for his liking, and each time they parted company, he swore he would make more time for the woman who had loved him from the moment their eyes joined. Not even the deified and greatly missed Jonathan Kent could lay that claim. He'd learned to love the little alien boy, and grown to think of Clark Kent as his own child, but not Martha. No siree. Clark was her little gift from God, His consolation for having been only partially made up for this world. Clark was her an angel from another. And when she saw him standing in the faint glow of a new sunrise, she had known. It was just as it was the morning after Jonathan's funeral. She was about to lose her son to wiles of the world.

Kal's memory only now faintly recognized this in her, and he needed only have asked to confirm it when he'd had the chance. Instead, he just smiled and waved at her as she stepped out onto the firm land, nearly tumbling when Buster frantically shot out the door to welcome Clark home. For a moment, Clark had prepared to run the distance as to steady her. He could cover it in as little time it took his brain to send the telegram to his legs, but instead, not as sturdy, but sturdy enough, Martha upheld and walked the short, but not so short distance to her son. Clark met her halfway, Buster to and frow, measuring the shrinking span between them, nipping for attention and wagging his tail.

She was so much older now, he noticed. The mind was funny that way with your parents. You saw them just as they had always been, as young as they must surely always be, until the day you discerned it. And forever more it's the first thing that creeps into you when you see them. This much Clark had felt at that moment, and he had very nearly decided not to go. That was why he came, right? To either tell her he was leaving or find the reason not to. Neither happened. Instead, there was another small Kent reunion, a play that had been performed too many times to change, and yet did. And each little variation drove home the enormity behind this old-fashioned get-together.

Breakfast was offered and politely refused. On the script so far, but instead of Martha contending and Clark relenting, a counteroffer was made, and hesitantly accepted. The eggs were overcooked and the sausage not quite ready when they hit Martha's plate and spilled over the side onto the table that had seated three generations of Kent's. Coffee was poured and food eaten, though Mrs. Kent resigned to her drink much sooner than son, who ate hastily and under some compulsion for normalcy. For a time, the only sound between them was the squeaking of Clark's knife and fork.

"I read your story." Mother broke silence first. Martha Kent had long given up her subscription for the Smallville Ledger, a paper far too interested in playing catch up to the salaciousness that passed for the print of the age. However, among her few monetary obligations in the world, she regularly received a bound volume of Metropolis' exploits, through the lens of the Daily Planet, paying close attention, of course, to the respectable reporting of Clark Kent. After she was done with them, she would pass them amongst her friends at the old store, where she spent too much time these days, finding a reason to harass dear Bart Montgomery for his opinion of city living.

Bart ran the old store, and Martha had seen quite a lot of him there these past few years. The Planet was far too liberal, he reckoned, and Clark had been foolhardy thinking he could make a difference in a big old city like that. Better to let the yahoos have it before you find yourself yahooing with the rest of them. He told this to Clark himself when the kid came around to visit his mom all too infrequently. She'd bring him in to help carry groceries, but mostly to show off the big strong boy everybody had watered for a wallflower back in the day. Bart liked the kid and what he wrote about even better. He wanted to, Martha guessed, because of what they believed in, even if he could not.

"You seemed very upset." Martha had opted to leave the latest Planet out of circulation. In recent weeks, and months if she admitted, she'd noticed the prose used by the reporter Kent growing increasingly more disheartened. The latest byline attributed to Clark had been weary, completely disenchanted, and far-flung from the warm objectivity she was accustomed to reading. "It wasn't your fault. You know that."

"I know," Clark replied unconvincingly. He wasn't about to broach the subject. Funny how the timing of things worked sometimes. One little heartache, inspiring one little article, in one city paper, mixing among all the other little sorrows and heaven. Triumph and tragedy going on forgotten by everyone as soon as they finished their morning toast. And then there was that little piece of business, coming along at just the right moment, nestled in the back pages, involving an astronomical discovery of note to no one but science buffs, and was only in the Planet because Perry White, who gave not a single damn about the stars that didn't walk a red carpet, did give a damn about the three things that sold papers: tragedy, sex, and Superman.

After breakfast, Clark offered to help with the day-to-day operations of Stately Kent Farm. There was another polite refusal. Clark suggested, without mentioning Ma Kent's age of course, that she might consider hiring on someone from in town to help with upkeep since he was not around as often as he'd like to be. In fact, he knew just the man. Richard Lang, who lived only two miles away with his mother, Lana.

Martha said that she knew the boy and his mother, but she hadn't known that Clark had met Ricky. Did Clark remember Lana?

He had. And he did. Ricky had a bad spill on the way to school one morning. His bike had an argument with an embankment, and well, wouldn't you know who won the exchange. Rick's leg was broken, which had long mended as of now. From where he'd landed, his faint cries were not heard by the other school children just a few yards away. Clark happened to be passing by, some six miles off and had heard him perfectly.

He stuck around at Smallville Medical Center for a bit and had met Lana all over again. The conversation had been brief, and awkward for Clark, who had loved Lana before he knew he liked girls. And there he was, in bright blue tights, before the girl of his high school dreams, wishing he could have melted into a bucket, and Lana, there, in all of her faded, but no so faded cheerleader glory, flashing that coy smile that girls always seemed to flash at him when he was in costume and what was the point he'd been trying to make?

Martha said she'd ask about Ricky, and see if he were willing to make a little lunch money off an old widow. But, that was no problem. She could still carry her own weight. He didn't have to worry about her as often as she knew he did. She always knew she'd have to share him. She had been blessed, but you have to pass the blessing on, and a man's got to add to the world whatever he can. It wasn't her place let him keep fussing after her if he had somewhere he needed to be.

Clark was content to stay right where he was for a while longer. They hadn't caught up in a good long while, and he could shoot the breeze with the best of them. There was so much left unsaid.

Ma said that would be very nice, but Clark had to go. He mustn't waste her or his time. There was so little of it left now. He had to go. Get up and get out, and leave her alone. Get out. Get up.

Get. Up.

Kal jolted awake amid the beating of drums. He rolled over on his side and heaved the contents of his stomach. When he was through, he cursed the Kryptonian scientist who had conceived the liquid goo that had sustained his waking body. He crawled blindly along the coldest surface he'd ever touched, and when his strength ebbed, he thanked the maker for it. He pressed his forehead against the floor and praised the glacial shocks that were in contention with the hot fever that drew within confines deep in his skull.

An inch at a time, he writhed along, trying to find any kind of wherewithal to stand, but he couldn't take a deep enough breath. The recrudescing streak of light was the only thing that proved he hadn't been blinded by the attack, and every time it flashed he tried to get a better idea of where he was. Cold steal looking walls that refracted the blackness offered very little. With each tug at his body, he got a little less out of the effort and was very sure he'd had it when his hand clamped down on a thicket of hair matted with sticky wet.

In the all too brief and dim interlude of electricity, his eyes deceived him. Slumped in his path, was a giant tiger in a tracksuit. No matter how much he tried to clear his vision, no matter how much he was sure the next wave of illumination would reveal the trick of the light, but there it lay, jowls open, breath all hellfire. Each intake it took produced a stifled rasp. Dried blood clung to one side of his snout, and a black scorch mark ruffled the top of its head. Two orbs vacantly fixed on an ether no one conscious could witness.

Kal could feel lighter. He managed to sit upright by pressing himself against his fallen companion. His bearings, however, were not forthcoming. And by the time his mind chimed in the possibility concretely of his being aboard an alien ship, new business had already presented itself. He discovered that his newfound lightness in measure was due not to the restoration of his determination, but rather because gravity had lost its grip.

He draped on the draft, unable to manipulate it around his body as he had on Earth; instead, he was subject to the air's vagaries. And if the wind had a wit, a dark disposition was the soul of it. Kal loomed, suspended on his belly, over the Tiger's body. The almost but not quite rigid body still had a twitch. And as those baby blues locked with yellow suns, the stars sparkled and sprang to life.

"Hello." Kal nodded. Without thinking, he offered a consoling smile and instantly felt very, very stupid. He'd have a chance to apologize for his bad first impression up close, however, as the gravitation lost its hold over the much larger—man?

Not satisfied to postpone their First Contact, Tigerman, in a move almost too swift to deduce, shot his legs as hard as Kal thought that he could downward—or what used to be downward—and used the remaining resistance his heavier body still afforded him to launch straight at the humbler Kryptonian.

_So that_, Kal surmised as the world went sideways, _must be what it's like to be hit by a bus without the advantages of super strength_. To any spectator, he figured, it would have looked like a strange ballet, a tumbling and twirling gemish of bizarre theatrics. Arms and legs and furry paws the size of his head swiped and batted in a flurry of frenzied alarm. Didn't hurt, surprisingly, as much as his back hitting what he could only guess was the ceiling. He got a sense of an enormous installation. He also heard a call echo loudly over the scuffle.

"Attention," a flatly affected voice proclaimed. "Five minutes until life support failure."

This spurred a response from old Shere Khan, whose claws closed around his prey's throat. "She's murdered me!" He shook the smaller man. "She's murdered me!"

"Maybe we can help each other." Kal's voice squeaked and struggled under pressure on his windpipe. Fitting, considering how much like a mouse he left like, and oh God, please let there be a thorn that needed plucking. Or wait, maybe that was Androcles? Either way, kindness was never ever wasted, so sayeth mom, or dad? Was it Father who imparted the tale? Everything blurred and grew darker.

When he regained soundness, he felt the ripples of flight, and for just a fraction of a moment, he could detect the faint hustle and bustle of Metropolis distorting together and fighting for distinction from the rest of the big wide world. Nowhere else like it. Such a great quality. Like music. It did not last. Sound was replaced with smell, a monstrous acrid stench. Something hard pressed against his back. He looked down. A mighty paw encapsulated his waist while another fanned the air like a marathon swimmer. His dance partner was riding the wind.

A small beacon glowed dutifully, showing the way to shore. As they moved closer to it, Kal could make out the unmistakable countenance of a digital interface, rising out of a small platform.

"This is the Bay's controls." The tone was deep and guttural, and very close. A cold shiver ran up and down Kal's spine, but it stayed inside his skin. "Is there anything you can do?"

"Attention," the flat unclaimed voice reconfirmed. "Three minutes until life support failure."

Tigerman's free paw gripped the helm's railing around the stage and pulled them in. Kal felt released enough to float within reach of the console. He let his hands come to rest on the screen and studied. It was a simple touch screen menu, but he could not read the categories.

"I need you to help me read these." Kal's hoarseness disguised his misgivings. There was no way out of this. How in the hell could there be?

His anxiety was nothing compared to that of his new friend.

"I am not good at explaining this jargon." A quiver had overtaken the once mighty and baritone notes.

"It will be alright." Kal's hardwired reassurance kicked in. A holdover from his former job. They were dead as dead could be. "Just read what it says."

And thus: "Status, Navigation, Communications."

Tragically simple arrangement. These must have been parent folders with further instructions in subheadings. Kal pressed Status. A dull clang rebuked him. Nothing happened. Okay. How about navigation. Another reprimand and then nothing.

"Hurry!" Tigerman roared.

"Well," Kal sighed. "I'm counting on you, Communications."

"The ship-to-ship Comm doesn't work!"

"I thought you said you didn't know about this stuff?" Kal mumbled absently. He abruptly discerned that Communications was the only menu option that was lit up. The other two were slightly duller. His finger rapped the screen. The menu reshaped and presented a new set of options. "Alright, read this."

"There is no point!" A claw slammed the railing next to Kal. He could see the indention more plainly than he could envision the whole of his previous years. "The Communication Array was shot off when we blasted our way out of Yhido!"

_Whatever all that meant._

Kal could not understand the types, but he knew what the color green usually meant. Ready for use.

"Read!" Something in his throat poped.

Silence. Well, almost silence. "Attention, two minutes until life support failure."

One of the indecipherable characters started to flash berserkly. "What does it say?" Kal requested, much more precisely and softer. His timbre was returned in kind.

"Transmission ready?"

A long, almost needle thin talion crept passed Kal's face and tapped the screen tepidly. Before it even had a chance to break contact, a response came over the comm and echoed throughout the Bay.

"It's about time, Dahn." The voice taunted smugly. "I take it the package has been delivered?"

Kal turned himself and regarded his stripy sidekick. "Are you, Dahn?" he whispered.

The voice impatiently interrupted. "Speak up! Is the crew of the Ojmurod dead, or not?"

"No," Brott replied to both queries. "I am not."

And then he added. "That sneaky Ohloo son of a..."


	4. PART ONE: Chapter Four

_Author's Note: the author wishes to apologize for the short length of this entry. It seemed the best place to leave things._

_#2: the author also wishes to thank Marlon Brando for his participation and portrayal as Jor-El._

_#3: the author wishes to apologize for the above attempt at humor. He will take the necessary steps to get help._

* * *

_PART ONE_

_The Doomed Ship Ojmurod_

_Chapter Four_

They say your life flashes before your eyes when you're about to die, but in the case of the Ojmurod's Captain, the ghosts brought only regret, the kind she swore she did not feel. They gathered around in silence, floating, drowning in the endless void and bid her welcome to their ranks. They locked hands and enveloped her. She knew no more pain until the specters found their voice. A single song sung to a flat but deafening tune.

_Let them go._

Sil's chest lit on fire. She screamed, but her voice was seized and refused to answer her. Her mind recoiled into the dark, and all that remained of her was her ragged breathing, alone in the fight against the crushing weight of the depths. And somewhere, her father, simple and plain, smiled and waved goodbye. And from the abysses came rage.

A memory sparked. Blurry images of the unknown pilot, the silhouette of his holographic comrade, and there was Brott. Flames and smoke lingered about the edges of his fixed orbitals. His maw slacked, and he fell upon her.

In the now, Sil's senses returned with a sudden jar of electricity, and she scrambled up the dazzling helm controls of the crystalline ship. Her vision was slower, pulsing awake like the ship's trandescent heart. Her sense of smell carried her consciousness all the rest of the way home, and attending her eyes was a sight best left in the darkness.

Aldon sat half out of his clothes, and as he added to the pile of his discarded refuse, Sil nearly retched. She didn't know which were more prevailing, the warm fetor or his not so quiet mewling. Aldon had his foot halfway inside a red boot. He sat shivering, trying and failing to hid his fear of the Ohloo.

"Stop whimpering," Dahn demanded, standing over him, his thin lips curled into a deeply set frown. And yet the shrunken man persisted, pushing ever further the armed Ohloo's personal resolve with his childlike manner and insufferable mien. Even in the absence of distinct facial features, Sil knew Dahn was calculating how many blows his boot could deliver until Aldon's bones relented.

"I will not ask again," Dahn's cool emphasis promised a forthcoming reprisal.

Aldon shrank from him and held his expiration. He let his breath out slowly and closed his eyes. His breath shuddered, and he sank into the ruffles of his new cape and sobbed. The retribution never came. Instead, Dahn's great black pools ominously reflected Sil's staggered cast.

"He is easily disquieted, the addle-brained oaf," his assuring measuredness returned. "How are you feeling, Captain?"

"What happened?" Sill gasped.

"Brott happened," he replied.

She began to remember. It had been determined that the hologram man was an artificial intelligence designed to interface with the pilot as some sort of guide and apparently was granted some personality so it could be called upon as an alleviation for loneliness. More to the point, it could fly the ship, and instantly, Sil's stock had dropped five grades to stowaway in the time it took the giant Den'ol to throttle her to the ground and nearly crush her windpipe. And then...

"I dispatched him in the back of the head," Dahn brandished the laser emitting weapon lackadaisically, letting his wrist dangle carelessly back and forth. And with a curt twirl, it was holstered out of sight. "Aldon and I unloaded his remains on the Ojmurod, and now we are well away from that damnable heap."

Aldon mourned the loss with a stifled yelp. He stood with his new adornments. A yellow belt and a bright blue shirt disappeared under his flight jacket. The ostentatious seal peaked out from under the frayed clasps and zipper. The red boots flopped, almost trailed, behind the man, as he ambled to the small compartment where just a little while ago, Kal-El of Krypton dreamed of Earth. The old man sat with an expire that Sil readily adopted for herself as she slunk down to the floor.

She unzipped her flight suit to the hilt of her neck and massaged the forming bruise. "So, where is it?" She rasped.

"It?" Dahn slowly tilted his head and then sprung back to life. "It is piloting, and apparently rendering repairs to the damaged systems."

A scaled eyebrow replied with a suspicious arc.

"Jor-El?"

The pause spooked her.

"How may I assist you?" The disembodied voice fazed into form slowly. His black robe flickered and faded so that Sil could see Dahn and Aldon further behind him. He—it—smiled at her knowingly, almost slyly, and stood with hands clasped in front of a small paunch, awaiting her request.

Sil momentarily lost her thought and felt faint. She wished she had something on her stomach so she could throw it up.

"How—How are we?"

"You've gone off course a fair amount," Jor-El revealed after a slight hesitation. "I am unable to call upon any further information for this sector at this time."

"The result of the damage we took?"

"Indeed," his smile widened. "You found a bit of trouble, I suspect?"

Despite its earnestness, Sil was stirred. She and Dahn briefly looked to one another across the cockpit.

"Not really?" Was the best she could muster.

"Curiosity is healthy," Jor-El seemed to sense her deflection. "Especially, out here in the peculiarities of outer space, but be mindful. There is much going on around you, no matter where you are."

"What about communications," Dahn blurted, uncomfortable with verbosity in anyone but himself.

"Do you wish to make contact with another species?" Jor-El's demeanor hardened somewhat. "The ship needs time to repair so that I can access profiles of known alien life in this sector, then we'll discuss exploration."

How did a ship repair _itself_? The gravity of this development nearly toppled the severity of the task before them. Sil now wondered who and what they had interrupted, not to mention what might happen once this sentient computer repaired itself and it started asking more questions, or suddenly became capable of telling plated scutes apart from pink flesh. The Ojmurod had to be wholly decompressed of air by now, leaving their only bargaining chip as a mystery for spacefaring scavengers that dared venture this far from the Tohn Empire. If they ventured father, they might find whatever was left of her little band.

"I don't mean to usurp," Jor-El scolded himself. "I promise to disengage once you have access to all ship systems again."

It sounded just like the father it professed itself to be. It needily sought attention from its offspring. It's no wonder the pilot had wanted rid of it. Sil's stomach heaved again. The constriction had been growing since she regained consciousness. And now it finally occurred to her what she needed. She'd almost forgotten it, but her body would always remember for her.

"Thank you, father." She dismissed the elder hologram, prepared to face its probable wrath. Her first ounce of resignation seeped inside of her resolve. Let death come out from its hiding place. It always waited in the dark for a runaway Tohn slave, and the house still won in the end. You could cling to the hope for only so long before it snatched you. Her nerves prickled as if on cue and began stage two of her desiccation.

"Let me know when we are ready to set a course," Sil ordered.

Jor-El studied her intently, the stillness punctuated only by Sil's labored breathing. She was sure that this was it. Whatever spark that connected one piece of data to another had fired and found home. And what could she say, but make it quick, and spare the nausea that was overtaking her? When it spoke again, it might as well have been a thunderclap, though what was said meant nothing to her.

"Are you going to tell me what it was like?" Its face pulled a little.

Sil did not respond, and the ensuing silence was taken for something that could only be shared between two dead men who were not here. It—he—nodded and pursed his lips as though about to add a parting word, perhaps a consolation, but it was abandoned, and he vanished.

"What was that all about?" Dahn chimed.

"It's time," Sil had no time to speculate. She rolled up her sleeve and presented her arm.

"I don't feel anything yet."

Dahn's cheeky tone aggravated her, but she had not the strength to admonish him.

When he didn't get the banter he was hoping for, he bent over the duratain crate that Brott had gifted them before his untimely departure and ran his fingers along the clasps. He opened it only a fraction, and the strain on the hinges was enough to render Aldon from his apathy, who hopped up onto his haunches. His renewed spirit amused the Ohloo, who prided himself on how well he was able to hide it.

"Must be the added exertion," Dahn facetiously hypothesized. He brandished not a weapon, but respite, and he treated it just as carelessly. Three long, thin cylinders, capped at one end with a tiny metallic port rolled back and forth in his palm.

"I suppose Aldon and I can join you a little early."

He dispersed the vials amongst his companions, and when he had a sleeve in retreat, he raised a toast. From within the ampoule rose a tiny thorn.

"To the crew of the Ojmurod," he pronounced with no glimmer whatsoever in his dark oculars. "Your immolation leaves us with so much more." And then he plunged the port of the vial into the muscle. Then came the glimmers.


	5. PART ONE: Chapter Five

_PART ONE_

_The Doomed Ship Ojmurod_

_Chapter Five_

* * *

Jonathan Kent once said that If a man were looking for a fight, talking would only make it happen faster. Knowing when to keep your mouth shut could make you the genius of your household, perhaps of your generation. If you're destined to get clipped, wait until they throw the punch, and deal with it then. How much easier advice is to take when you can stop a four hundred ton airbus just by pressing against it. But as Kal watched the giant known as Brott writhe and pitch, his thoughts were drawn to one very cold night where being the better man had ended with the first taste of his own blood. He would taste it again.

For the briefest of moments, it had looked like nothing but a speed bump, and it had to be the rush of newly minted climate controlled air, but it actually occurred that maybe with a concise explanation and a heartily shared laugh, he would be pointed in the direction of his craft and been well on his way to Terra Firma. He had a long road a-ho, and a tough row to hoe if Ricky Lang had moved on to girls and had no time to help an old widow with her chores, You know how it is, right?

But, it wasn't Kal's straw-hatted space farmers who pried open the bay doors. They didn't have nuclear-powered pickup trucks, and it wasn't a slow, lopey walk they sauntered with, either. They had the march and formation of illiberal spaceketeers. Their dress was as uniform as their placid, unadorned faces. One solid jumpsuit, exact and vertically smart, tightly adhered to medium builds. The color of the fabric was a deep purple that shown black in the rejuvenated light.

They broke off as though stepping off an assembly line, and formed two huddles. Three of them advanced on Kal, five more were upon the wounded tiger. There were no mistaking the long tapered barrels that met the old farmboy's eye. Too slender to hold lead, he was sure they were at least twice as deadly. And behind them, great black pools that did not twitch or give away a single hesitation. _One hell of a poker face_, he thought. Even out here in the wild cosmos, a gun was a gun and Kal had raised his hands in surrender, but Brott had known better, it seemed, and with hardly a leg left to stand on, fought like his life depended on the next few seconds.

Horror and awe mixed together in Kal's stomach now, and as he watched the beastly titan growl and strike against certain defeat, a small dwindle of admiration passed by. They had brought out weapons of a differing sort for the monster. It looked like men on the plains, earning their right of passage with spears and forged alliances. These lances were electrified, however, and hot to the touch. The men hunched down, and when a talon swiped, they jabbed low. Energy arched and raised up like water flowing from a spigot. The artificial atmosphere crackled and bubbled around the sharpened points, emitting a blood-curdling squeal. And when steel met flesh, there was a loud retort. One pop. And then another. And another. Until howls and roars were made into moans. A sulfurous odor saturated the air and marked the end of the struggle.

"That is quite enough," a voice barely registered over the weapons as they quelled to a rhythmic hum. The silence was instant, as the tranquility after a thunderbolt from the gloom. The bay had begun to fill up. The same blank, big-eyed countenance swarmed to one side in a single action. One strode out of the crowd, differentiated by his gait and his dress. _The Boss_, Kal guessed. Instead of a jumpsuit, he was adorned with a high necked tunic that grew into a cape out from under his belt, which swayed measuredly with him as he approached the fallen Brott.

Two underlings came to meet their commander and whispered quietly amongst themselves. After two curt bows that were not returned they scattered, and the congregation began to spread out. Hatch doors were opened. Kal could hear clanging and banging. He pictured ants swarming through different compartments in a hill.

"Where is Dahn?" The Commander's voice was even and neat.

The pile of scorched fur whimpered defiantly. Even on his back, the creature unnerved Kal, but he dared not move. The feeling was not shared by the alien leader. His hands were clasped tightly behind his back, and he stood undefended now. If Brott had the wherewithal, he could rise and strike him down in one blow. It never came. The aura of complete control left no ambiguity as to who was in charge. Arrogance, confidence, even superiority, all brought to heel by one thing. Unrelenting certainty. Kal had seen that stance, that look, and felt that quality of character before. One syllable, three letters, that had been the cause of so much misery. Long defeated, and yet still unwillingly revered by the victor.

"It isn't honor that holds your tongue?" The words were firm, measured on delivery, chosen precisely for their intended audience. "Some misplaced loyalty for your friends?"

And finally a response: "I have no friends, Ohloo."

"You'll address me as Captain Rudali of the Aninsmi-Yhido Consortium." Only the slenderest inflection, then calm and firm again. "You do have one friend, I assure you."

_What streak of madness_, Kal pondered, _lies within those peaceful waters._ What was Rudali like on a bad day when the tide went against him? Not quite so magnanimous, Kal wagered. Suddenly, he could feel the ship beneath his feet start to rumble and come alive. He jumped and felt the men holding him at bay responded in kind, their fingers never retreating from their triggers or their great black eyes from his face.

"_I_ am your friend," Rudali continued to address the shuddering beast. "And I have just the thing for what ails you." One hand slowly revealed itself and showed something to Brott, but Kal couldn't see it until the captain raised it into the air like King Arthur hiking the sword from the stone. No Excalibur, but a simple, slender vial glinted in the eyes of the crew that now rose to meet it, transfixed. Even the dark, defeated gaze of Brott brightened.

"And all it will take for me to give it to you," he promised, "is your capitulation."

Another subordinate presented before the Ohloo captain from a hatchway within Kal's realm of sight and shook his head. _Whatever or whoever they're looking for, it isn't here_. Kal sensed the coming of a moment of truth. Whatever patience on display was about to wear very thin through its veneer, he thought, but Rudali didn't waver. He tilted his head slightly and finalized an offer.

"Tell me where Dahn and the Ojmurod's malefactors are," he pleaded with intense conviction. "And I will give you what you need."

Brott sturred. His exposed fur twitched from under his singed flight suit and began to spasm. His lips curled back. From Kal's vantage, he could see his shaggy face recoil involuntarily as the buried skin tightened and tried to retreat to the hidden corners of his cranium.

"They left you in want," the sermon began. "Your body has betrayed you." The marionette that used to be Brott writhed and flopped helplessly against the floor, much to the delight of onlookers. A mighty warrior reduced to mindless convulsions. Then came the screams from the darkest hellfire Kal could fathom from scripture.

The exorcism continued unhindered. "Do you know why?"

Gurgling answered.

"I say, do you know why?!"

Rudali looked to his captivated crew. "Because it doesn't belong to you!"

Undeterred by the display, the crew closest to Brott's agony moved that much closer and began to quietly revel in his suffering. Rudali made a brusque huffing noise and the rank reformed. Brott quieted, and the sudden stillness drew him ever closer to the finish. It was unclear if the pain were just too great for his consciousness to bear or if he had accepted it finally and refused to allow it to have the final word in his approaching end.

"Tell me where they've gone," Rudali directed, "and I will ensure that you are reinitiated into a labor group... after your Diffraction, of course."

Brott muttered obediently, but what was said Rudali could not discern. He instructed a nearby man to kneel closer. An earless head touched the black lips of the tiger, and a small measure of repayment was issued. Lime green was the color of Ohloo blood, it was discovered, and every trace was lapped until his prey was pulled away. Those screams ranked. And so did Brott's laugh before it faded.

Rudali moved not a muscle except where it was necessary to utter two syllables.

"Kill him."

"I'll tell you where they've gone."

Jonathan Kent had another saying.

He had once told Clark a story about a cousin who came to live with him one fall when he was still Jon, Hiram Kent's boy. Jon lived very much like Clark had. The farm wasn't quite as big or as prosperous, but Hiram and company got by just fine. Not fine enough for his son, who had all sorts of ideas about being gung ho in expanded their prospects. And when Jon's cousin Frank came to them, well that was a whole lot of trouble.

Frank was a sweet enough kid. Polite and respectful, even to guys his age, and he could take a joke. Jon hypothesized that he'd had to learn that very young. He laughed hard and fast, and you never saw him down. That didn't stop Jon from thinking that he was a big fat bother once it became clear that Frank was slow on the uptake. No, it wasn't because his parents were from the far east (all the way in New Jersey), though yes they were and it was hotly discussed. Frank was just not up to snuff for farm living. Instead of Jon's workload being lighter, it became a mess. You had to tell Frank five or six times how to do something, and even then it didn't turn out right. And Frank went to school with Jon that fall. What a nightmare it was. He followed Jon the whole way like a sick puppy, and he met all of Jon's friends and made it clear who he was and what his relation was. And Jon's friends saw him, and they knew.

But that wasn't the point of the story, of course.

The point was what happened at the water pump.

When Jon was a kid, the schoolyard had a water well. That water well had a pump. To get water out of that pump, you had to turn a metal crank. To get at the crank, you had to unlatch it from a bolt.

Now, you had Pop. You had it when you had the money to spend, or your folks gave you the money. And you'd drink it out by the water well during lunch or when you shot the breeze after school for a bit before you treked home if you didn't take the bus. Jon was a walker. And so Frank was a walker. And they were water drinkers. Hiram Kent could not afford Pop.

The kids would sit along the track, still within view shot of the school and sit at the concrete steps up to the pump and discuss their day. Jon liked to tease the girls but had recently found more pressing reasons to hang out with them. That was impossible with Frank who too eager and too friendly would make fools of them both. And the first time he tried to take a drink, the chaffing, which had been kept at a minimum for Jon's sake, began in earnest.

The bolt for the water pump was not complicated. All too easy it was to unlatch, and Frank couldn't do it. This Jon learned when the line formed. What was taking so long at the pump? He broke off asking out Clara Stephens for a date, something he was sure he would not risk once he collected Frank. One of his friends, with a name he did not remember, had pulled him away. Frank was having trouble.

He went up and saw him desperately trying to work the crank, which would not budge. The crank in one hand and that damned cup in another.

That water pump also had a cup. A communal cup. Just a little saucered bowl. No, not everyone used it. In fact, Jon could not recall having used it or seen anyone else use it before Frank. It was a relic from a different time. Put there by the old schoolmarms as a courtesy. Everybody used thermoses or whatever. Nobody used the cup. Nobody but Frank.

Jon, the spectacle of the yard, had unlatched the crank and churned Frank some water into the cup.

Nothing seemed unusual until the second day, when Jon, pulled away once again, found Frank, who still could not master the crank, had gotten help elsewhere. Scotty Long had cranked the water for him into that most heinous little cup.

The thing about that little ceramic cup was that it had about a quarter inch chip in it. Just enough to cut yourself if you weren't careful. Frank was not so careful, Scotty had surmised, and held it for him. Until it slipped, of course. Funny. Scotty just couldn't keep it steady. So others had chipped in. Who could hold the cup steady for Frank? Darn it nobody could.

At home, at Hiram's table, it was not discussed. Frank was light and jovial as always. Jon, who usually dominated conversation with talk of what new venture could put money in the old man's pocket in between stuffing his face, was very quiet. Hiram noticed, but did not press the matter.

And so it went for three more interminable days. It didn't matter that Jon had swiped a cup from home. It didn't matter how much he tried to take Frank to the water pump himself, there was always someone waiting with that little piece of clay, and they insisted on helping.

On the fourth day, it had gotten all around school, and the teachers came to watch the performance. They did not participate, but they had themselves a laugh. Jon never forgot it. They had not stepped in. Not until Jon did.

On that fourth day, there was a change in the lineup. Clara Stephens was the first up to help Frank, and she would end up being the last ever invited to do so. By this point, the repeat performances had lost their luster, and the payoff had been far exaggerated for effect. Now, when the cup slipped, it was slipping so hard that it flipped up in Frank's face. On Clara's third try it slapped the bridge of Frank's nose, and guess what landed flush. Blood varnished the little clay bowl. Frank did not scream. He sank. He shrank down and pressed himself against the well and sobbed.

Scotty Long thought it was the best thing he'd ever seen until all he saw was Jon's knuckles. Three of Scotty's friends avenged him, and Jon had limped home with Frank behind him, bloody and bashed.

It was a scandal. Scotty's father threatened to sue for the broken nose until Hiram showed them Frank and told the story as it had been related to him and dared the teachers who watched it happen to say more, and then matter had been settled.

_But why_, Hiram did ask of his son. _Why did you wait?_

_It was not my fight._

And old Jonathan Kent told Clark what his father had told him.

_When it's time to do something, do it._

_You know when it's time to do something._

_Do it._

And Mister Kent added one proviso to this legacy of advice before he passed it to the third generation.

_Just be careful how hard you do it, kid. You pack a wallop._

Well, he didn't pack so much of a wallop anymore, but that didn't stop him. He'd had all he could stand and could stand no more.

"I'll tell you where they've gone," Kal repeated. "If you stop torturing that man."

He'd gotten enough of the gist of what occurred while he was unconscious to understand enough now. He needed more, yes, but for now, he had enough to end this ostentatious brutality.

All eyes turned to him, and then to Rudali.

Kal's captors parted before their administrator and lowered their weapons. Up close, Rudali's eyes had just a dash of red pigmentation. They were rimmed with puckering, saggy flesh. Kal could even make out the slightest discoloration that he thought might be what passed for freckling among the Ohloo. An uneasy silence passed between them.

Rudali still had the small vial of Brott's salvation. His gloved hand ran it along the shield of the House of El. Kal's eyes left his not for a single moment.

Kal broke the silence first.

With—was that just the inkling of a smirk—he curtly regarded the cylinder. "Would you please administer that. My pal is very sick."

Could the Ohloo emote physically? They lacked so much by way of facial muscles, it seemed. No expression, nothing, and yet everyone but Kal seemed to know what Rudali was feeling. A pall cast heavily over this one-sided conference.

"The big guy's my friend too, you see. It's very lucky we're both here for him."

Captain Rudali of the Aninsmi-Yhido Consortium finally spoke, and when he did, the words were firm once again, measured carefully on delivery, and chosen precisely with an exacting craft for their intended audience.

"I thought all the Kryptonians were dead."


	6. PART ONE: Chapter Six

_Author's Note: Apologies once again for the shorter chapter, but it seemed to be a better idea to break this scene into two parts._

* * *

_PART ONE_

_The Doomed Ship Ojmurod_

_Chapter Six_

Aboard the last vessel ever created by Kryptonian engineering, there were dreams. Aldon's were the most expressive. Vibrant images came out of hiding from behind locked doors. Memories molded together like a costume ball featuring partygoers from different periods of his life. They commiserated, just out of synch with one another. In this world, he mingled, moving like a dutiful host from one group to the other. Not all these congregations were celebrating, some poked and prodded him for answers, and though he did not have any to give, he at least understood the questions. As much as he would allow, anyway. Sometimes, he would become aware that he was under, and seek out a woman among the chattering and subterfuge. One whose face resembled his far too much for his liking. He would try to explain what was happening. That he would remember this time. And she would smile and say that yes, he would.

Dahnaeth, of the House of Zaeer-Yhido, did dream, contrary to popular belief about the Ohloo species, but what he saw was fragmented, shattered upon entry. Even at rest, there was control and restraint. A mind that never entirely stepped all the way away from reality. If he had been from Earth, he would have balked at the opening line of the famous Shirley Jackson novel. And yet he was haunted. And what frequented did not walk alone.

Sil was very far away, where there were skies stained orange. It was warm, but not because of the weather. Nighttime visions came to her feverishly, lurching in and out of her fantasy life. The world as it was, had been, unchanged and unimpeded. Where you traveled upon the waters cast in mauve and not in the endless dark. Hope was not the glimmer in a far off star. It swam with you. No, not hope. Hope needed ambition. Tranquility suited much better. And yet, in the water, you can still drown. Nimble fingers, cold as the clay that walled a tomb, crawl their way in and-

Sil started suddenly but did not open her eyes. She slowly raised her lids like lazily opening curtains. Her nerves settled, and her vision cleared. Her crewmates were sleeping. Aldon had made his nest under the crystal wings that had served as Kal-El's sleeping pod, and Dahn had lost consciousness right where he had sat and delivered the needle prick. One could never be sure with the Ohloo. Those black saucers did not close at rest. They stared at her, fixed, as if on sentry. His chest rose slowly, lackadaisically, unmeasured and out of his finely honed control.

Her body returned to her in waves, pulsing and ebbing, not quite there until she was firmly on her feet. An acrid aftertaste sat hotly at the back of her throat. When she saw Jor-El, the sharp tang cascaded into her chest. This was it, she thought, the moment the electric eye wreaked vengeance upon its son's killers.

The hologram stood with its back to her, poised in courtly fashion, about to begin an address to its peers. Instead of delivery, no doubt much deliberated on, the flickering model quietly regarded the far off stars at the edge of the wreckage belt. How much personality had been bestowed upon this interface? How much of a dead man's father had been allowed inside? Where was the line drawn between mimicry and sincerity?

Jor-El turned to face her fully and smiled appositely.

And what might the damage to the ship done to blur it?

"Camptown ladies sing dis song," he enunciated carefully. "Doo. Dah. Doo. Dah." His eyes squinted, and he opened his mouth. It hung there as data banks reshuffled and searched for the correct wording. "I can now plot your way back on course. You still have approximately one thousand twenty-two days before you reach home. It would be advisable to allow me to supervise the rest of your journey, I am detecting several heavily used vessel lanes nearby that were not here when I sent you to Earth. Much, it seems, has changed."

"How far does-" Sil's briefly eyed her sleeping skeleton crew. "How much data does your memory bank have?"

"Approximately twenty thousand Zerabytes of information is embedded in the crystals before you. Presently, I am able to access seventeen thousand, six hundred ninety-four-"

"What do you know about this area of space-" Sil's neurons did some reshuffling of their own. "What is the reach of your knowledge of this star system."

Jor-El's response was much quicker now, calling up the primer of his original designation. It was like an information bot doling out tourism pellets.

"Embedded in the crystals before you is the total accumulation of all literature and scientific fact of dozens of worlds spanning the twenty-eight known galaxies."

Sil regarded the dozing Ohloo and then said: "Teach me how to input coordinates manually from the helm."

"I am tied into the ship's navigation. It would be much easier if I plotted the course to Earth-"

"We aren't going to Earth." Sil had never heard the name, and she spoke it with a heavy 'urrr' sound.

Jor-El silently ruminated, and the ship became too quiet for Sil's comfort.

"Am I correct in assuming-" There was delicacy and careful consideration in the old man's voice. Was it a clever data bank rendering? A wistful expression said otherwise. Then finally, directness. "Are you looking for more survivors, or are you seeking a new asylum?"

This appeared as the next phase on an ongoing conversation, an important one at that. This was something that had been tossed back and forth between two men (they were male?) who seemed to be locked in discussions where they could find as many ways to sidestep what they were feeling (Sil was convinced this image felt) and what they wanted to honestly say. It was apparent even to the outsider Sil that this singular moment of direct clarity might represent a breakthrough, one that would not be answered. Not ever.

"We are not going to Earth just yet," Sil corrected. That was close, she reckoned. Don't mind me. _I am your Kal, pink and healthy, not Sil, cold and scaly._ Almost humorous. "We are taking a detour." The discussion was over. "Provide a map." Her tone was commanding, speaking to the servos and not the ghost of the machine.

Jor-El obliged.

The room filled with tiny specks of light. Tiny pinpoints danced around the defunct Ojmurod Captain and were suddenly still. A bright bauble lit her vision. A small rendering of the crystalline ship. Even at such a size (it could fit in the palm of her hand) it throbbed and pulsed and made her uneasy. It began to shrink. The wreckage belt, peppered with asteroids that could atomize her with one firm nudge, cascaded through her hair.

"Helm control has been restored," Jor-El confirmed. A faint smile graced his lip. "Let your fingers trace the crystal, and we'll see what you can do."


End file.
